Upgrading from Windows 7 Starter to 64-bit?

[sj33]

I just bought a netbook, one of those AMD Fusion C-50+Radeon 6250-on one die things, which has support for 4GB RAM, which I'll be upgrading to since it's such a trivial upgrade. I also have a retail version of Windows 7 Professional Upgrade. However, netbooks come with Windows 7 Starter, which is 32-bit only.

Is it actually possible to upgrade from Windows 7 Starter to the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional (or Home Premium)?

[EvilBoris]

I'm pretty sure it'll let you, you can upgrade from 32bit vista to 64bit Windows 7, so I can't see why it wouldn't let you.

Are you not able to do a clean install?

[sj33]

I don't mind doing a clean install, but with an 'Upgrade' key, I'm pretty sure I would have to have my activated version of Starter installed first.

I don't actually have the netbook yet, it'll be arriving in a few days, I'm just not quite sure how all this works.

EDIT - Just found this.

" You can use Windows Anytime Upgrade to upgrade from one 32-bit version of Windows 7 to another OR from one 64-bit version of Windows 7 to another, but you can't upgrade from a 32-bit version of Windows 7 to a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or vice versa."

Damn. 32-bit it is.

[Mayhem]

I was just thinking as I read this thread that you can't switch between 32 and 64 bit... looks like I was right then.

[sj33]

They sure know how to make this difficult - you can do a clean install with even Upgrade editions, so I don't see why they couldn't do it.